yi THE ARYAN QUESTION. 275 



languages and of a primitive Aryan language; but 

 of a primitive Aryan people and of a primitive 

 Aryan home, or country occupied by them. 



But where was this home of the Aryans? 

 When the labours of modern philologists began, 

 Sanskrit was the most archaic of all the Aryan lan- 

 guages known to them. It appeared to present the 

 qualifications required in the parental or primitive 

 Aryan. Brilliant Uhlans made a charge at this 

 opening. The scientific imagination seated the 

 primitive Aryans in the valley of the Ganges; and 

 showed, as in a vision, the successive columns, 

 guided by enterprising Brahmins, which set out 

 thence to people the regions of the western world 

 with Greeks and Celts and Germans. But the 

 progress of philology itself sufficed to show that 

 this Balaclava charge, however magnificent, was 

 not profitable warfare. The internal evidence of 

 the Vedas proved that their composers had not 

 reached the Ganges. On the other hand, the com- 

 parison of Zend with Sanskrit left no alternative 

 open to the assumption that these languages were 

 modifications of an original Indo-Iranian tongue, 

 spoken by a people of whom the Aryans of India 

 and those of Persia were offshoots, and who could 

 therefore be hardly lodged elsewhere than on the 

 frontiers of both Persia and India — that is to say, 

 somewhere in the region which is at present known 

 under the names of Turkestan, Afghanistan, and 

 Kafiristan. Thus far, it can hardly be doubted 



